NO. 16. ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER
Let us fancy what this country was like more than thirteen hundred years ago. The English had conquered it and given it their name and language. The Christian Faith, which the Britons had learnt while the Romans were ruling them, had been almost quite forgotten except in the western part of the land; for in the east very many of the English had settled, and they were heathen. Do you remember that Pope Gregory the Great, when he was still just a simple priest, had seen some English children in the slave-market at Rome, and thought they were fair as angels? He never forgot these children, and when he became Pope he sent his friend, Augustine, and some priests to England to teach its people the Christian Faith. These missionaries landed in Kent and were kindly received by its King, Ethelbert, whose wife, Bertha, was already a Christian. In time he was baptized; and the old historian Bede tells us that he "builded in the Citie of London St. Paules Church"; and its first Bishop was that Mellitus to whom the fisherman Edric brought the message that St. Peter had consecrated his own abbey on Thorney.
In time Ethelbert died, and Mellitus was made Archbishop of Canterbury; then the men of London became heathen again. There is a curious old tale about this, and though it is just a story, not real history, I will tell it to you. Do you remember that the monks said Sebert, King of the East Saxons, rebuilt St. Peter's Abbey? Do you not think, then, that he must have cared enough about the Christian Faith to teach it to his sons? Yet after his death they went back to the old Faith. It chanced that one day, when Mellitus was holding the solemn service of the Mass, they broke open the door of the church, rushed in and ordered him to give them "white bread" such as he used to give their father; they meant the Bread used in the Mass. How could Mellitus give it to men who did not believe the Faith in which such Bread is a holy thing? He refused, and in their anger they turned him out of London; and, as I said, the Londoners went back to their old religion. Truly it took a long time and much teaching to make them really Christians.
Near the end of the seventh century we hear of another Bishop of London, called Erkenwald. He did much to make St. Paul's beautiful and splendid. And he cared for his people too,—the men, women and children, who lived scattered about in the wild forests which then lay round London; and in order that he might visit, help and teach them, he used to drive in a cart from place to place over rough roads, and often where there were no roads. He was so good that people said he was a saint; and so when he died and his body was buried in St. Paul's, his grave there was greatly honoured,—it was even said that miracles were worked there. Is it there still? Ah, no; it was destroyed long ago, as you shall hear presently. Yet London ought not to forget this old Bishop since it is said that one of her streets is called after him, for in his days it seems that the old Roman walls had fallen into ruins, and it is said that Erkenwald built a new city-gate ever since called, after him, Bishopsgate. If you look at a map which shows the streets of London, you will find Bishopsgate and Bishopsgate Street near Liverpool Street Station. This story shows us that Erkenwald was a good citizen as well as a good Bishop.
The years passed on; the Normans came and conquered England; and now we have come to real history.
Near the end of William I.'s reign, St. Paul's was burnt down, and the Bishop of London of that day began to build in its place a cathedral so grand and large that men thought it would never be finished, "it was to them so wonderful for height, length, and breadth." Yet little by little it grew until—but not for more than two hundred and twenty-five years—it stood complete with its great steeple, the highest in Europe, towering up 520 feet into the air. This is the Cathedral to which in later days Queen Elizabeth came to return thanks to God for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Here Sir Philip Sidney was buried. Perhaps you remember that, as he lay dying on a battlefield in the Netherlands, someone brought him a drink of cold water which seemed to him the most delicious thing in all the world, so thirsty was he because of his wounds. Then he saw a poor soldier looking at it with longing eyes, and he would not drink it, "for," he said, "his need is greater than mine; give it to him."